§ 1. At present the scientific gap between archaeologists and linguists is
becoming more and more apparent. The former (cf. Tautavicius, 1981; 1991),
relying on weighty arguments, maintain that the Samogitians (or elsewhere, Low
Lithuanians, Zemaitians; Lith. Zemaiciai)
as a separate union of Baltic tribes formed as back as the 5th c. A.
D.; the latter are inclined to support Salys conclusion (Salys, 1933) that
our major dialects first appeared a millennium later. The shy attempts to
transfer the divergence of those dialects to somewhat earlier times (Girdenis,
1971) were disapproved by both archaeologists (cf. Tautavicius, 1991) and
language historians: the latter continue to maintain that the dialects are
comparatively young and that their essential differences can be accounted for by
the strong influence of the dying Curonian (Lith. Kursiai)
language in the 1516th centuries (Zinkevicius, 1981).

Proceeding
with my thoughts and assumptions expressed a little earlier (Girdenis, 1992), I
will try to show here that the North Samogitian dialect has preserved a number of
inflexional phenomena, the
stratification of which corroborates the archaeologists point of view or at
least approximates the linguistic dating of dialectal divergence to the
archaeological dating.

§ 2.
Earlier investigations have demonstrated that the chronology of Samogitian
divergence can be ascertained with greater exactness by the evolution of the
inflexional endings since it is the only thing which can be broken into distinct
layers resembling geological or archaeological strata. Therefore, further
attention will be given to inflexional endings. Ample literature on Lithuanian
dialectology (e. g. the works by Salys, Grinaveckis, Zinkevicius, the published
volumes of Atlas of the Lithuanian Language, etc.), from which even less
informed readers can form a clear picture of the distinctive features of the
dialect and its more detailed classification, gives us the right to confine
ourselves to this rather narrow and special field of research.

- – - – - – -

All
these changes probably took place in the course of 600 years, for they started
in about 1300 and were over in 1900. If we simplified the real situation and
supposed that the rate of the development was regular, we could state that the
Samogitian endings underwent two essential changes every 135 years. Though this
rate of the development is quite relative (a language cannot change very
regularly), it rather well corresponds to some credibly documented facts from
the history of the dialect. As has been mentioned, Salys (1933) proved that
affricates in the Samogitian dialect started arising after the death of Vytautas
the Great  according to our hypothesis, this was the second event after the
Law of Leskien. Having added to the approximate date of this law (~
1300) the average duration of two ending changes (~
135), we get the date (~
1435) which perfectly corroborates Salys conclusion (Vytautas died before
1435). The opposite reckoning does not contradict the documented facts either.
The fourth reduction of endings (the 7th stage of the development),
most probably, started in about 1765 (1900  135= 1765)  in the mentioned
Ziwatas of 1759 we do not detect any of its signs, as in the dialect of
the translator of this book even -æ < *-e,
*-`a
is well differentiated from -æ (see, e. g. § 5).

§ 17.
Since the number of wordy ending changes during the period of 600 years, from
the Law of Leskien till the end of the 19th c. (i.e. approximately
from 1300 till 1900), was the same as that from the beginning of the development
of the divergence till the said law, it can be said with confidence that the
time period separating this particular beginning from the Law of Leskien is by
no means shorter. In this case, with respect to their language, Samogitians
started drifting away from the future High Lithuanians not later than in the 7th
c. A. D.  in about 700 (1300600
=
.

Having
in mind the fact that the 1419th centuries in the history of
Lithuanian tribes and dialects were more dynamic than the previous epoch and
that in such turbulent times the language had to develop much faster, we could
guess that the first peculiar features in the phonetic of the Samogitian dialect
arose much earlier  even in the 5th c., which is not often
mentioned by archaeologists, especially A. Tautavicius (1981; 1992). But
the truth is that the 7th c. is also sufficiently significant for
linguists, for at that time the common East Baltic ancestor language must have
split into separate tribal languages (see Buga, 1961; Urbutis, 1962).
Samogitians most probably spoke one of those languages (we have no doubts about
the rest of them  Semigalians, Selonians, Latgalians and Lithuanians).
Samogitians and Lithuanians might have drawn together later  in the
consolidated Lithuanian state.

Thus,
we may state that the Samogitian tribal language turned into a dialect of the
Lithuanian language not in the process of linguistic divergence  their
present closeness to High Lithuanians was conditioned by the processes of convergence. It is known that under complicated historical circumstances the
changing of a language can be neither straight nor simple; therefore, divergence
and convergence most often intertwine  let us remember the possible mixing of
Coronas with Samogitian But the main direction or trend of the
development, however, could hardly have been different.

*
Science, Arts, and Lithuania. 1992. Vol. 3 (23). P. 95101.The
article has been subjected to considerable revision and improvement (for
this special thanks are due to Prof. Dr. habil. Laimutis Valeika); the
original title of the article has been modified, too.

A well-known Vilnius University professor, Aleksas Girdenis,
61, is an authority in the field of dialectology. In 1964, still at the
beginning of his career, together with a co-author, he classified contemporary
Lithuanian dialects.

His Phonology (1983) and The Basic Theoretical
Principles of Phonology (1995) are of fundamental importance to the science
of the sounds of the Lithuanian language.

Researching into the peculiarities of his native zemaiciu
dialect (the dialect of Samogitia, one of the countrys four ethnic regions,
occupying the greater part of western Lithuania), Girdenis hid a tape recorder
in the wall of his parents house in his home town near Telsiai to record the
language of his close family. In this way he obtained over 400 hours of spoken
language which he used for his book on the local dialect published in 1996.

The professor says that he has been collecting material for
this book since 1968.

Im a native of Samogitia. We are famous for our
accuracy and meticulousness, traits which have served me well in the field of
phonology and phonetics.

The universitys Department of General Linguistics, headed
by Professor Girdenis, is jokingly called the department of Samogitian
linguistics: most of his colleagues are from Samogitia and speak their native
dialect among themselves.

To be a phonetician you need keen hearing and to be good
at mathematics and literature, says Girdenis. He won a prize at a nationwide
physicists competition while still at secondary school. He also used to play the
violin and wrote poems in his native dialect.

I started writing verses at the age of ten and it must
have influenced my decision to choose Lithuanian language studies at Vilnius
University, Girdenis says.

He still writes poetry in his native dialect. This spring saw the publication
of a collection of verses in the dialect. Edited by Professor Aleksas Girdenis
himself, the book includes several of his own poems.